In recent years, domotics, home automation and the implementation of intelligent homes have demanded the improvement of the intelligent devices implemented in this technological field, such is the case of smart switches which have more and more functions implemented, which offer the user greater ease of information about their lighting system, as well as better interaction.
At present, there are some intelligent switches with two or three ways that can measure parameters of the lighting devices to which they are connected. Said smart switches, mainly, are characterized because they are only able to measure one or two parameters of the lighting devices they control. Within these parameters it has been found that the most predominant is the measurement of electrical/power consumption, which few smart switches can perform, wherein the method used to determine the electrical consumption is based on sampling the current consumption of the lighting device during a time interval of operation, said sampling being processed by a microcontroller to determine the electrical/power consumption. There are also two- or three-way smart switches that can dim different lighting technologies (LED, CFL and incandescent bulb), wherein the lighting intensity dimming is carried out through methods known as leading or trailing edge.
The state of the art discloses smart switches that can measure the electrical consumption of the lighting devices, such is the case of U.S. Pat. No. 9,250,669 B2, which discloses an energy measurement chip included in a device for controlling lighting devices. A voltage signal in the lighting device is provided for the energy measurement chip, said energy measurement chip calculates the energy consumed by the lighting device and communicates said calculation to a controller external to the energy measurement chip. However, said US patent does not disclose a data filtering to eliminate the noise present in the voltage signal, wherein said filtering is comprised by an amplitude filtering, a frequency filtering and a magnitude filtering. Data filtering allows ignoring variations or small voltage peaks that affect the treatment and evaluation of the voltage signal analyzed. Another great difference found is that the US patent does not disclose or suggest a method of detecting type of lighting device technology, that is, said US patent can not determine if the lighting device is an incandescent halogen device (incandescent bulb) or a compact fluorescent device (CFL) or a light-emitting diode (LED) device. Also, said US patent fails to disclose or suggest a method of detecting irregular behavior in the operation of a lighting device, i.e., said US patent can not determine if an intelligent device is consuming more current than it should and probably the lighting device is in a state of deterioration. As a last difference, said US patent does not mention anything regarding a method of detection and selection of a dimming mode, that is, said US patent can not detect the most appropriate dimming mode for the lighting device, trailing or leading mode, and once the most appropriate dimming mode has been detected, selecting said mode.
On the other hand, US patent application US 2014312869 A1 discloses a universal lighting device control module that allows to provide a reverse phase cut dimming mode and a forward phase cut dimming mode. Said US patent application uses zero crossing information of the current signal to synchronize the inner timer of the microcontroller of the universal lighting device control module with the input power at 60/50 Hz. The above allows the microcontroller to provide a PWM control signal synchronized with the input power and thus have a smooth and flicker-free performance of the lighting device. However, said US application does not mention anything concerning the detection of the most appropriate dimming mode for the intelligent device by means of the analysis of the input voltage signal (subsequently transformed to a current signal) simultaneously in the two dimming modes, trailing and leading modes, wherein said analysis is performed in a single cycle of the sine wave analyzed. In addition, said application does not mention anything referring to selecting the most appropriate dimming mode by means of the maximum current detected, so that, if said maximum current detected is before 25% of the cycle of the sine wave analyzed, leading mode is selected, otherwise, trailing mode is selected. Also, said US application fails to disclose or suggest a method of detecting irregular behavior in the operation of a lighting device, i.e., said US application can not determine whether an intelligent device is consuming more current than it should and probably the intelligent device is in a state of deterioration. Another great difference found is that said US application does not disclose or suggest a method of detecting the type of lighting device technology, i.e., said US application can not determine whether the lighting device is an incandescent halogen device (incandescent bulb) or a compact fluorescent device (CFL) or a light-emitting diode (LED) device. As a last difference, said US patent fails to provide a method for determining the energy consumption of an intelligent device, that is, the US application does not determine how much current, and therefore, how much power the lighting device is using.
Now, U.S. Pat. No. 9,595,880 B2 discloses a control module comprising one or more energy measuring circuits, a current measurement circuit and a voltage measurement circuit. Said current measuring circuit measures the magnitude of the load current conducted in the lighting device. Likewise, the voltage measurement circuit measures the magnitude of the voltage line of the AC power source. In turn, said US patent generates a phase control signal using standard dimming techniques to control the dimming of the lighting device. However, said US patent does not disclose data filtering to eliminate the noise present in the voltage signal and the current signal, wherein said filtering is comprised by an amplitude filtering, a frequency filtering and a magnitude filtering. Data filtering allows to ignore variations or small voltage peaks that affect the treatment and evaluation of the voltage signal and current signal analyzed. Another great difference found is that said US patent fails to disclose or suggest a method of detecting the type of lighting device technology, that is, said US patent can not determine if the lighting device is an incandescent halogen device (incandescent bulb) or a compact fluorescent device (CFL) or a light-emitting diode (LED) device. Also, said US patent fails to disclose or suggest a method of detecting irregular behavior in the operation of a lighting device, i.e., said US patent can not determine if an intelligent device is consuming more current than it should and whether said intelligent device is in a state of deterioration. Although said US patent uses standard dimming techniques to control dimming of the lighting device, it fails to disclose or suggest that the detection of the most appropriate dimming mode for the intelligent device is through the analysis of the input voltage signal (subsequently transformed to current signal) simultaneously in the two dimming modes, trailing and leading mode, wherein said analysis is performed in a single cycle of the sine wave analyzed. In addition, said application does not mention anything referring to selecting the most appropriate dimming mode by means of the maximum current detected, so that, if said maximum current detected is before 25% of the cycle of the sine wave analyzed, the leading mode is selected, otherwise, the trailing mode is selected.
Another relevant document is Japanese Patent Application JP 2001135491 A, which discloses a device comprising a first and second switch elements connected in series, said first and second lighting circuits include a resonance circuit connected in parallel with the second switch element and a fluorescent lamp for exclusive use of high frequency lighting. Said device detects, precisely, anomalies in the behavior of a fluorescent lamp, wherein said anomalies are representative of the last life cycles of said fluorescent lamp, in turn, discloses a device for fluorescent lamps that maintains a desirable lighting condition despite the anomalies in the behavior of the fluorescent lamp. Although said Japanese Patent Application discloses a method of detecting irregular behavior in the operation of a lighting device, said Japanese Patent Application is only focused on high frequency lighting devices, specifically fluorescent lamps. In contrast, the present invention is capable of detecting anomalies in any lighting device, such as an incandescent halogen device (incandescent bulb), a compact fluorescent device (CFL) and a light emitting diode (LED) device. Likewise, said Japanese Patent Application fails to disclose a method of detecting the technology type of the lighting device, nor a method of determining the energy consumption of a lighting device, nor a method of detecting and selecting a dimming mode.
More generally, U.S. Pat. No. 8,492,984 B2, U.S. Pat. No. 9,354,643 B2, U.S. Pat. No. 9,401,588 B2, U.S. Pat. No. 9,572,215 B2, U.S. Pat. No. 9,084,324 B2, U.S. Pat. No. 5,038,081 A and US Patent Application US 20100101924 A1 disclose techniques for selecting dimming mode and control of a lighting device. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 8,492,984 B2 refers to a method of self-detection between a dimming mode and a phase cut dimming mode; U.S. Pat. No. 9,354,643 B2 is directed to an intelligent dimming solution for lighting devices such as light emitting diodes (LED) and other non-linear lighting devices; U.S. Pat. No. 9,401,588 B2 is directed to a universal lighting device control module that controls the dimming of a lighting device by means of reverse phase cut dimming mode, forward phase cut dimming mode, and a hybrid dimming mode; U.S. Pat. No. 9,572,215 B2 is focused on a method and apparatus for correcting an incorrect dimming operation; U.S. Pat. No. 9,084,324 B2 discloses a lighting device control device, such as a light emitting diode (LED) dimming switch, which is configured to automatically determine whether to provide a reverse phase cut dimming mode or a forward phase cut dimming mode; U.S. Pat. No. 5,038,081 A is directed to controlling an AC load, specifically an incandescent bulb, by means of the reverse phase-controlled dimming mode, by changing the power of the ON/OFF load during each half cycle of the sine wave; and, finally, U.S. Patent Application US 20100101924 A1 is directed to a switch device for controlling the state of a lighting device that includes a control element, which controls at least one sensor and sensitivity range of at least one sensor component, wherein said sensor component detects at least one condition and causes the switching device to control the state of the lighting device. However, said U.S. Patents do not mention anything regarding the detection of the most appropriate dimming mode for the intelligent device by means of the analysis of the input voltage signal (subsequently transformed to a current signal) simultaneously in the two dimming modes, trailing or leading mode, wherein said analysis is performed in a single cycle of the sine wave analyzed. Furthermore, said U.S. Patents and Application do not mention anything regarding selecting the most appropriate dimming mode by means of the maximum current detected, so that, if said maximum current detected is before 25% of the cycle of the sine wave analyzed, leading mode is selected, otherwise, trailing mode is selected. Likewise, said U.S. Patent and Application fail to disclose or suggest a method for detecting irregular behavior in the operation of a lighting device, or a method for detecting the type of lighting device technology, or a method for determining the power consumption of an intelligent device.
In addition, there are other patent applications that speak of techniques for selecting dimming mode and control of a lighting device, such as AU 198174729 A and WO 2016014957 A1. For example, the Australian Patent Application focuses on a method for controlling lighting devices in an electrical installation, which comprises the steps of modifying the waveform that is provided from the electrical installation to deliver detectable control signals of a plurality of distinctly different forms. From the foregoing, the method of said Australian Patent Application is different from the method used in the present invention, wherein the difference is that the present method uses trailing or leading dimming mode, while the Australian Application method does it differently. Now, the International Patent Application discloses a control module that determines whether the lighting devices respond effectively and automatically to a plurality of dimming control techniques. That is, the control module performs a trial and error on the lighting devices to determine the most efficient dimming mode. However, none of these documents mentions anything regarding the detection of the most appropriate dimming mode for the intelligent device by means of the analysis of the input voltage signal (subsequently transformed to the current signal) simultaneously in the two dimming modes, trailing or leading mode, wherein said analysis is performed in a single cycle of the sine wave analyzed. In addition, said application does not mention anything about selecting the most appropriate dimming mode by means of the maximum detected current, so that, if said maximum current detected is found before 25% of the sine wave cycle analyzed, the leading mode is selected, otherwise, trailing mode is selected. Also, said Patent Applications fail to disclose or suggest a method of detecting irregular behavior in the operation of a lighting device, nor a method of detecting the type of lighting device technology, nor a method of determining energy consumption of an intelligent device.
In turn, there are two U.S. Pat. No. 9,250,669 B2 and U.S. Pat. No. 8,476,895 B2, which disclose methods aimed to measuring the energy consumption of lighting devices. However, said U.S. Patents do not disclose data filtering to eliminate the noise present in the voltage signal, wherein said filtering is comprised by an amplitude filtering, a frequency filtering and a magnitude filtering. Data filtering allows ignoring variations or small voltage peaks that affect the treatment and evaluation of the voltage signal analyzed. Another major difference found is that said U.S. Patents do not disclose or suggest a method for detecting the type of lighting device technology, nor a method of detecting irregular behavior in the operation of a lighting device, nor a method for selecting and detecting a dimming mode. In turn, there is a Patent Application Document WO 2009099082 A1 which, likewise, is focused on measuring the energy consumption of lighting devices; however, it fails to disclose the novel differences mentioned above.
Taking into account the differences and defects of the prior art, it is notable that the prior art mentioned in the preceding paragraphs fails to disclose or suggest the novel and inventive technical features of the present invention.